Americans all live fast paced lives, struggling to cram in as much as possible into twenty-four hour days. It is possible that the world might end if one doesn’t manage to fit class, work, studying, a trip to the gym, blogging, and four club meetings into the day. It’s not really, but it feels like it. So things get cut out. Cooking is not important, there are restaurants so you don’t have to do that and fast food chains so you don’t have to wait. For some of us (you know who you are), eating becomes expendable. Eight hours a night for sleep is frequently closer to four, or three. Sometimes it seems life would be easier if a day had 32 hours instead of 24.
More than that Americans also have an obsession with being on time. So not only does one have to get to each of one’s thirty daily activities, one also has to be on time.
This is the way of life in the US, most people don’t even notice it. I didn’t, until I studied abroad (You may have noticed my lengthy absence, for that I blame censorship). Many countries aren’t nearly as obsessed with time as Americans are.
The number of cultures in the world where there is some kind of afternoon break is astonishing. The Spanish “siesta” was carried to the majority of Latin America, the Chinese have a “shui wu jiao,” Bangladesh has the “bhat-ghum,” and there are many other examples throughout the world. Even the Western Europeans take a long lunch to enjoy their meal.
Time is also much more flexible in many other countries; no disastrous events occur if one is five, ten, even twenty minutes late.
The moral of this post is not that the US is superior to and more productive than other countries; nor is it that Americans should be less busy and timely. If you want to continue to rush madly about your life, be my guest, but keep in mind that you can always prune your activity list down to a more manageable level.
I find that I enjoy the ability to stop for a moment and smell the proverbial roses, but you may not.
I also recommend that you read “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” by Harlen Ellison.
